Soren Kierkegaard on the Self and God

Soren Kierkegaard on the Self and God 

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all” - Soren Kierkegaard.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?—Jesus, Mark 8:36.

The Human Condition: Who Are We?

A. Philosophical problem: philosophical anthropology

i. What is our nature?

ii. What is our problem?

iii. What is good for humans?

B. Existential problem of being human under the sun

i. How do we cope with our nature?

ii. How do we address our problem?

iii. How do we embrace the good and shun the bad?

C. The Theme in Philosophy in Seven Sentences

All of our philosophical sentences invoke or provoke the self, but from different angles. Protagoras brings it all back to the self, which is the measure of all things. I measured Protagoras wrong. Socrates exhorts the self to examine itself for truth for as long as it takes. For that, he should be commended and emulated. For Aristotle, our nature as human selves is to seek knowledge. He was right. Descartes finds certainty in his indubitable awareness that he is thinking and thus an existing being who has the concept of an infinite God in his mind. We could find worse places to start our investigations. Pascal exhorts us to consider reasons of the heart, that aspect of self that knows directly and intuitively.

Groothuis, Douglas. Philosophy in Seven Sentences: A Small Introduction to a Vast Topic (p. 124). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

 

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